City Of Midland Schedules Safe Implosion of Western United Life Building

Rumors have been going on for months that the demolition of the Western United Life Building in Midland was coming up, well now the city of Midland has set a date for the destruction of the abandoned building.

The streets around the building from Marienfeld eastward to Loraine and from Ohio south to Wall Street will be closed down on that day to let the debris from the building fall easily and not endanger any lives.

The Western United Life Building was built in 1948 and has been vacant since 1996, a project called Hotel Fuel was planned for the building but never came to fruition.

The building was part of a tragic death in 2017 when 16-year-old John Butler fell to his death from the 11th floor down the elevator shaft of the building, that pretty much sealed the deal on the building being eliminated from existence.

The past several years have seemed to be the most active for demolishing buildings in Downtown Midland. Still, the first demolition was actually back in 1972 when the Scharbauer Hotel was demolished to make way for the Hilton.

After that, it was over 35 years till the next demolition which was the implosion of the Midland Savings Building, the destruction of the Permian Building, and the destruction of the V&J Tower all happened in 2008.

Since then the former Midland County Courthouse and the Building of the Southwest have also been eliminated from the skyline of Midland.

The scheduled date of the demolition is set for Saturday, March 25 and the mother of John Butler, the teen who fell to his death in the building, will be at the demolition.